On Thursday, March 12, 2026, the Carroll County Board of County Commissioners convened an open session at 9:00 a.m. and resumed at 1:00 p.m. at the County Office Building, Room 311, Westminster, Maryland. The morning agenda covered pension plan amendments, a legislative update, recreation and housing public hearings, grants and contract awards, the FY27 transportation plan, and a forest harvesting briefing. The available transcript captures only the afternoon Position Review Committee presentations; no minutes were provided, so final action on most morning agenda items is not documented.
And express my gratitude for the time and dedication that they have given to this process and to bring to you this um recommendation today. So first we have Tim Burke. So if they could raise their hand so that I think you will know who Tim Burke is. Tim Burke, the county attorney is the director representative. We have Aaron Kelly, the HR representative. Corey Hardinger as the management and budget rep, Ashley Treese as the Enterprise Fund Rep, Cara Bolton from IT as a member at large, and then we have Chris Weinbrenner from Economic Development as a member at large. I am the facilitator of the committee and also a non-voting member. Okay, next. Twenty-nine commissioner positions were requested through this budget process. Position requests from our governmental partners, such as the Sheriff's Office, State's Attorney, and Courts are evaluated by the budget office. The six committee members carefully evaluated these positions and rank them, taking into consideration meeting mandates, workload, and customer service. Every role you hear about today was ranked as either a high priority position or a medium priority position. The high priority positions are included in the committee's recommendation for funding. We understand the fiscal constraints that the county is always facing, but we hope that if you decide to add positions during this budget process that you will take you would act on the committee's recommendation. Okay, so the highest ranked positions or the recommended positions. We have two lieutenant training safety officers for DFEMs. They requested four, uh one for each shift. The committee felt that um two was a good a good start uh for this program. However, it's in the it's in the board's hands to decide how many positions uh would be uh included in in in the budget. Uh economic development workforce development is an admin assistant. This is a position that um was previously grant funded, and the grant funding is going away. So it is an existing position. Then we have two call takers for emergency management and communications and an administrative assistant for citizen services in their aging and disabilities division. The next group of positions are medium ranked positions, and you'll also be hearing from them today for your consideration for funding. Uh we have two existing part-time rangers or Piney Run Park that Reckham Parks would like to see go to full-time positions. Um there's eight firefighter paramedic or floater positions that DFEM is requesting. Economic development workforce development has an operations and resource manager, an existing position that is grant funded that they would like to see uh county funded. We also have a training and operations tech uh for 911 that emergency management and communications is um seeking funding for. Uh so what I will do is first um you'll be briefed by the directors and their staff on the positions that are recommended. Then the directors who have medium priority positions will have an opportunity today to discuss those positions for funding consideration. So the first person that I will question. Um you used to be there, maybe, Ted. So some of the budgets that we're going to see have additional positions in already? Or not. Are these addition, are these more that they think they didn't get, or are these what they want from that that are more than last year? I believe if there's any positions in the budget, it would be an operating impact of like of a new building, but I don't believe, Ted. If I don't believe there's any new positions recommended in the budget. We should look at these as the new positions. Yes, absolutely. Not additional. Yes. Yes. Generally speaking, we would not add positions to the budget except like Deb said, um like uh in connection with the state's attorney building, we've added facility positions, just recognizing that that will have need to happen. Thanks. Okay. So I'm going to move over there, but I'm going to uh have Chief Robertson and Deputy Chief Supko come and talk to you about their defense positions. Thanks, Dan. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Good afternoon.